Accidental Death of an Anarchist was an enjoyable and amusing production

Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist is an ambitious project for any director. It’s eccentric, often bizarre storyline and characters make defining plot details and important moments difficult, and creating any sense of clarity or comedy for the audience is a challenge.

This week’s production in the Barron Theatre, directed by Anna Lee Jones, certainly showed the difficulties inherent in the script, but managed to rise to the challenge in an admirably convincing fashion. Though occasionally stumbling, Accidental Death of an Anarchist was largely an enjoyable and amusing production, powered by an impressively energetic lead performance.

The play follows The Maniac, a clinically insane man with a penchant for dress-up, who, with a little help from some dim-witted police officers, unravels and re-tells the story of an anarchist’s untimely death. The script dances on the edge of the absurd, and constantly flirts with being complete nonsense.

Police inspectors exhibit a pantomime-like disregard for the obvious as they are easily manipulated by The Maniac, ridiculous disguises are accepted as completely normal, and conversations quickly spiral into exclamations of non-sequiturs. The script relishes in its own silliness, yet Jones chose to direct this production in a mostly straightforward way, which to a great extent payed off.

The Maniac’s unique brand of comedy was established early, which justified the increasing ridiculousness of subsequent gags, and the supporting cast was characterized clearly enough to convince the audience they were willing to try anything to pass the blame for the anarchist’s death. Additionally, the decision to downplay the absurd elements and give the world of this play a semblance of logic, allowed Jones to direct specific moments of comedy which focused the attention of the audience on certain elements of plot vital for the success of the next joke.

It also felt fresh and well-paced – despite what could have been a plot bogged down in misunderstanding and long, self-indulgent speeches, her production moved along quickly enough to keep the audience amused, as well as to downplay the absurd suspensions of disbelief watching this play requires.

Jack Briggs, in the lead role, carried the play to a massive extent, bringing an impressive level of energy to what is clearly a demanding performance. His role is by far the largest in the play, and though he raced through his lengthy monologues with obvious skill, his articulation needed to be somewhat clearer – many jokes did not land simply because the audience couldn’t quite understand them. The supporting cast was more hit-or-miss, with articulation continuing to be an issue.

While Briggs had clearly mastered his character’s physicality, making distinct decisions as he wobbled and leaped across the stage, other performances seemed trapped in idiosyncrasies – feet distractingly not planted on the floor, and absent-minded hand gestures were a particular problem. This was largely not the case for Matthew Colley, however, who should be praised for a charming and amusing performance as the dim-witted constable. 

I have only two real criticisms of the play as a whole. The first is that much of the physicality, pace, and handling of plot elements – jokes, fights, chases, use of props – was overall quite sloppy. The final minutes in particular felt almost thrown together, overly rushed, and under-rehearsed. The production could have benefitted from finding comedy in incredibly tight gags, and while in some places they were, the overall effect was that the play was only amusing – rather than laugh-out-loud hilarious. As it was, the performance I saw was a decidedly ambitious play executed as decidedly average – if enjoyable – student theatre.

My second criticism is somewhat more nebulous. The play is distinctly political, written in reaction to the Italian government’s handling of a real-life death of a real-life anarchist (that was probably really a murder) in Milan in 1969. The question, then, is why this play is relevant today. There certainly are still governments abusing power and infringing on the liberty of citizens, but without an effort to contextualize its message, this particular production felt out of place, and I question the wisdom of the decision to put it on in the first place.

Overall, Accidental Death of an Anarchist was an ambitious, energetic, and charming production that made me smile and kept the audience engaged. Despite its flaws, cast and crew managed to bring together a performance that is likely to be distinct – both in terms of vision and result – from any other Mermaids production you might see this year, and for that it should be commended.